


Beginnings

by marikunin



Series: Sehnsucht [10]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Real Person Fiction
Genre: Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting, Canon Autistic Character, Canon Character of Color, Canon Disabled Character, Depression, Gen, Modern Era, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-14 00:59:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9149806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marikunin/pseuds/marikunin
Summary: You are Mary, and you are the Avatar.





	

Your name is Mary, and you are the Avatar.

 

You found out about your identity when you were eight and had a dream of the Spirit World and the Avatar before you. Between then and your twenties though, you didn't have many "Avatar dreams". Something about it not being the right time and having a normal childhood. Since a ridiculous number of Avatars have died obscure or young, the world at large (and the Order of the White Lotus in particular) tend to treat Avatars-in-training as vulnerable beings until they become fully realized. 

Life for you mostly continued on as normal. You kept going to high school, played video games, and played with your dogs. The only diffference was now you went to private earthbending lessons in town, after dark. It wasn’t that bad. Though your father and sister were waterbenders, your little “sister” was a firebender, your brother was a nonbender, and both sides of your family had benders of all kinds. You put sister in quotation marks because your father acted as her guardian for several years before she went back to her own family.

Naturally they’re all sworn to secrecy. You wonder if your mother knew you were the Avatar. You like to think so, but she died when you were just a few weeks shy of 13 from breast cancer so its not like you can ask her. The headline of the paper the day after your birthday was “Avatar Found”. All they would disclose was that you were 16, was an American citizen (the first American avatar!) and was starting their earthbending training right away.

Avatar Enkhtuya, your most recent life, had died in Shanghai in a car accident when she was in her 20s. She had been a Buddhist. You, on the other hand, were a Christian. Until recently, people still wondered if the car accident in Shanghai was an accident or something more sinister. (Spoiler alert: it was more sinister than an accident.)

Earthbending took you two years, and you’d mastered it by the time you graduated high school. Your new stepmom and stepbrother were included in the small circle of people who knew you were the Avatar. After a horrible try at college, you ended up living a hellish 7 months with your father and stepmother.   
  
Once you moved out, you went to be with your firebending cousin and her firebending son upstate. Those years were…tough. Firebending was very hard, and the abuse you suffered due to your father and stepmother still lingered. It took you five whole years to master firebending, and every bit of it was won through toil and pain.  
  
Due to your being diagnosed with Asperger’s (and then having a bad run at trying to live on your own when you had just turned 23) your father and stepmother put you in a program called FamilyCare for people that were “severely affected by mental illness and/or disability”. After four of five months to get settled, you start airbending training. By the end of that year, you began to have nightly visions of your past lives including Jesus (who you worship), and many Lost Avatars. Lost Avatars were those that died young or in obscurity. Then again, you also wonder if you began having visions of your future because your past lives knew you were considering ending it all. (Depression is NOT fun)  
  
By some miracle, your identity as the Avatar hasn’t been leaked yet, even with the Internet and social media being as it is. You’ve disclosed your identity to a few yourself: your earthbending boyfriend, a few friends of various bending types online, and some nonbenders. Once you hit 18, you had that choice as a legal adult. You could’ve even told the press, if you wanted, but for obvious reasons you kept quiet.  
  
You’re not ready for fame…yet.  
  
(The Past Avatars have told you that you’ll make a huge impact on social issues using cartoons, video games, movies and tv shows. Perfect for a media-obsessed geek like yourself.)  
  
Waterbending came naturally to you, Earthbending was okay, Firebending was a struggle, and Airbending is like coming home. Tattoos are how you make yourself feel beautiful and express yourself. Animals like you.   
  
You’re pretty sure God set up the whole Avatar system on purpose when He had the nonbending Adam and Eve’s first few children as different kinds of benders. The first Avatar (according to the Bible) had been Abel.   
  
The fact that Abel was killed by his brother Cain set the stage for Avatars for millennia to come, as most died obscure or young.  
  
You intend to change that.


End file.
